Cities, Climate and Inequalities

Review of a research partnership in Rosemont‒La Petite-Patrie: The challenges of sub-municipal governance for the ecological transition

November 2022

Mathilde Manon, doctoral student in urban studies, Department of Urban Studies and Tourism, UQAM, and member of the UQAM Research Chair on Ecological Transition;
Laurie Laplante, master’s student in environmental sciences, Institut des sciences de l’environnement, UQAM, and member of the UQAM Research Chair on Ecological Transition

The city and the governance of the transition: state of knowledge

From the Brundtland Report in 1987 to the Paris Agreement in 2015, the role of cities and the tools they have at their disposal to act against climate change are at the centre of debate. Indeed, studies suggest that cities emit at least seventy percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, despite occupying only around three percent of the territory (UNDP, 2021). In Quebec, these GHG emissions are largely due to the use of automobiles in urban areas, as well as urban sprawl, where people’s places of residence are far away from their places of consumption and work (MELCC, 2019). Moreover, cities are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change (Marvuglia et al., 2020). Municipalities therefore have a leading role to play in combating climate change, but must also participate in reducing people’s vulnerabilities, in addition to creating desirable and inclusive places to live (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2005, p. 13). In recent years, responses to challenges associated with climate change have been referred to by the term “ecological transition.” Beyond the good practices proposed by sustainable development, ecological transition implies a profound and even radical transformation of existing institutions, both in governance and land use planning (Amundsen et al., 2017; Araos et al., 2016; Audet and Gendron, 2012).

To this end, the Borough produced a strategic plan for the ecological transition, the Plan stratégique de transition écologique (Borough RPP, 2020), which focuses on the “living environment” scale as the preferred scale for achieving its ecological transition objectives. In the plan, the Borough relies on citizen experimentation and collaboration with the various innovators in civil society to carry out the ecological transition. Through their actions, these groups promote a transformation centered on the establishment of local communities aiming for self-sufficiency, via permaculture and urban agriculture projects, the “shared” management of public spaces and local resources and experimentation with mobility or energy, as well as the principles of inclusion and social justice (Douglas, 2016; Poland et al., 2019). These new citizen practices often arise in response to the rapid transformations that urban environments have undergone and the social inequalities generated by the weakness of certain public policies (Rossi and Vanolo, 2015). For research teams interested in these issues, these citizen initiatives help advance the concept of a just transition, in other words, a transition that takes into account the social and economic inequalities faced by certain more vulnerable populations, as well as the adverse effects of environmental degradation they experience (Wang and Lo, 2021). On the one hand, the initiatives emphasize the need to include all residents in the search for solutions to the climate challenge. On the other, they also call for these solutions to be fair and suited to the challenges, resources and infrastructures of urban communities (Bazilian et al., 2021). Yet, despite their great potential, they cannot meet the challenges of the ecological transition without the intervention of institutions, including municipal apparatuses, hence the interest in questioning the specific roles of sub-municipal bodies in the ecological transition and documenting the instruments available to them.

As part of this study, we have mobilized the concept of public action instruments (PAIs) to understand how a public administration, such as the Borough, acts within its territorial limits and within its framework of competence. PAIs can represent institutional tools at the service of the ecological transition. We use the following definition: a PAI “is both a technical and a social device that organizes specific social relationships between the public authority and its beneficiaries, based on the representations and meanings it conveys” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2005, p. 13; own translation). The case study of the Borough led to an examination of the use and challenges of applying PAIs in the governance of the ecological transition by this sub-municipal body.

Understanding sub-municipal governance in transition: the case of Montreal’s Rosemont‒La Petite-Patrie borough

The densely populated Rosemont‒La Petite-Patrie borough, located in the centre of the island of Montreal, is renowned for its long-standing commitment to ecological transition, with activities such as urban planning for active transportation, greening of public spaces and waste management programs. The Borough is also home to a rich network of community and citizen organizations experimenting with ecological transition initiatives.

The Répertoire-synthèse des interventions de l’Arrondissement de Rosemont‒La Petite-Patrie pour la transition écologique (Manon et al., 2021) aimed to clarify the thematic issues and instruments used by the Borough in the governance of the transition on its territory. To this end, it was based on a corpus of thirty-eight public and internal documents provided by the Borough’s directorate for territorial development and technical studies (Direction du développement du territoire et des études techniques).

By analyzing documents via NVivo software, we identified the main thematic issues addressed by our partner, the Borough, in its planning and policies, as well as six categories of instruments it used to address these issues on its territory. The classification of instruments was inspired by the decision-making guide La prise de décision en urbanisme (Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation, 2018) and by team members’ expertise in urban governance. The intersection of these two typologies has enabled us to draw out observations on trends in sub-municipal governance of the ecological transition.

Transition issues and the vision of the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie borough

A study of the Borough’s planning documents has enabled us to identify twelve intervention themes that underpin a certain vision of the ecological transition adopted by the Borought^[1] : 1) greening and biodiversity, 2) mobility, 3) social development (inclusion, housing), 4) water management, 5) the local economy, 6) reducing GHG emissions, 7) local democracy, 8) waste management, 9) the living environment, 10) the fight against heat islands, 11) culture and heritage, 12) urban agriculture and food security. The term “vision” refers to the Borough’s formulation of statements of general principles and major orientations guiding its actions in terms of the ecological transition.

After studying these themes, we have come to the conclusion that the Borough envisions implementing the urban ecological transition at the scale of the living environment. Within, residents would enjoy a high quality of life made possible by the accessibility of a diversity of goods, services and activities. In these living environments, social ties would be forged through citizen involvement in projects as a means of appropriating public space. The Borough is also striving for carbon neutrality by reducing pollution and promoting active and collective modes of transport. Thanks to measures to adapt to climate change, the Borough hopes that living environments will become resilient spaces, largely demineralized, very green and rich in biodiversity. In line with this ideal, civil society is active and works in collaboration with local institutions, which support citizen action.

This vision is consistent with the scope of a borough’s powers and responsibilities. As its powers are fairly limited and circumscribed, this sub-municipal body struggles to achieve certain objectives, as we shall see in the next section. Nevertheless, we note that it marks a certain distance from the technocentric approaches that most often characterize government discourse on the energy transition (Audet, 2015).

These six categories are defined as follows:

• Plans and policies set out the desired vision, major orientations, priorities for action and certain methods of intervention for a given sector or issue;
• Projects and interventions are the instruments of direct action that physically concretize the desired response to an issue on the ground, often in collaboration with local businesses and civil society;
• Regulatory framework refers to the set of standards and criteria that govern certain interventions to ensure they meet a given challenge. These instruments can be accompanied by coercive or punitive measures;
• Incentives take the form of coaching programs and material or financial support to encourage local players and residents to adopt actions and practices in line with the Borough’s vision (modes of transport, use of public space, etc.);
• Concertation and citizen participation are both instruments used for perceiving the needs and aspirations of the people living on the territory and of designing the means of intervention with local players. The spectrum of these instruments is broad, ranging from public consultation to the integration of civil society into public decision-making (consensus-building tables, citizen project support programs);
• Awareness-raising, often delegated to a local organization, aims to inform local stakeholders and residents about certain issues, with a view to encouraging changes in behaviour.

The table above reveals that certain categories of instruments are less widely used, notably incentives and awareness-raising. In addition, we note that certain themes are the subject of fewer interventions, in particular the fight against heat islands and the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Challenges and lessons learned in sub-municipal transition governance

These two categorizations and their intersection reveal the issues facing our partner and provide information on how transition governance is organized at a sub-municipal level.

Initially, the Borough was faced with the challenge of reconciling the promotion of a certain way of life, more suited to the educated middle classes of large Western cities, with the pursuit of objectives akin to those of the just transition. In the vision promoted by the Borough, social development issues (access to housing, inclusion of the elderly) are interwoven with ecological issues. Nevertheless, the effects of some of the key measures in this vision of the ecological transition are mixed. On the one hand, measures such as greening, beautifying space and traffic calming have a positive effect on the quality of life of the population as a whole. On the other hand, this improvement in the quality of life on the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie territory also seems to be associated with gentrification as well as a rapid increase in the value of land and rents (Bélanger and Fortin, 2018). This prompts us to raise the question of the accessibility of these environments with a high quality of life to people who are not only the most economically vulnerable but also the hardest hit by climate and environmental change.

A second challenge is the distribution of responsibilities and roles among sub-municipal bodies in the face of issues that go beyond the territorial framework of a single borough. Our case study shows the power of collaboration with local civil society and, by the same token, the strengthening of local democracy to bring about significant transformations in the physical environment of neighbourhoods or changes in behaviour. However, the table reveals that certain themes are associated with a lesser variety of PAIs. It seems to be more difficult for the Borough to take concrete action on themes such as GHG reduction or the fight against heat islands, whose impact and responsibility go beyond the scope of its territory and power. We see the need to create new modes of action and multi-scalar collaborations to meet these challenges. The Borough’s most recent efforts to promote local initiatives, on the one hand, and the recognition by the 2020‒2030 Climate Plan of the role of the City of Montréal’s boroughs, on the other (Ville de Montréal, 2020), allow us to envisage increased collaboration between these levels of government in the future.

Finally, cross-referencing the two categorizations (thematic and by PAI) clearly reveals the under-utilization of regulatory tools and incentive measures, which are nonetheless important levers for achieving the objectives set by the Borough (Laviolette, 2020). Regulatory measures are more difficult to implement, being more restrictive and often less socially acceptable. Moreover, the literature reveals that professionals are not always equipped to develop these types of instruments (Rochefort, 2019). Our study therefore highlights the need to produce new intervention modalities, combining the benefits of different instruments to maximize effectiveness and acceptability, with the aim of inducing transformations and changes in behaviour in favour of the ecological transition.

Conclusion

The challenges presented in this study shed light on a little-studied level of urban governance which nevertheless has a direct impact on the lives of people living in large cities. The Borough’s use of a number of PAIs to achieve its vision of the ecological transition demonstrates the power it can wield over transformations in the behaviours and lifestyles of its residents. This is particularly true in the case of instruments promoting citizen participation in the transformation of living environments, with a view to resilience to climate change, notably through the creation of social ties and local solidarity. Nevertheless, we also see the risk that these attempts to improve quality of life will reinforce the gentrification processes at work in large cities. So, although the Borough pursues objectives of inclusion and social mix, the measures implemented seem insufficient to bridge the inequalities on its territory. Nevertheless, it is at the sub-municipal level that citizen power has the greatest chance of being exercised and of directly influencing public decisions. However, promoting and strengthening local initiatives does not seem to be enough to meet the challenges of distributed responsibility that go beyond the territorial limits of a borough. Close collaboration between different levels of governance is therefore essential. Observations drawn from the case of the Rosemont‒La-Petite-Patrie borough can guide decision-making by other sub-municipal bodies and contribute to a better understanding of current practices and the challenges they present.

^[1] This summary paper predates the publication of the Borough’s strategic plan for the ecological transition (Plan stratégique de transition écologique de l’Arrondissement) (RPP, 2020). Nevertheless, the thematic issues raised by the summary paper are in line with the vision set out in this plan, published in the fall of 2020.

To cite this article

Manon, M. et L. Laplante (2022). Review of a research partnership in Rosemont‒La Petite-Patrie: The challenges of sub-municipal governance for the ecological transition. In Cities, Climate and Inequalities Collection. VRM – Villes Régions Monde.https://www.vrm.ca/review-of-a-research-partnership-in-rosemont-la-petite-patrie-the-challenges-of-sub-municipal-governance-for-the-ecological-transition